Erwan Le Corre

ERWAN LE CORRE: Founder

Erwan Le Corre is the founder of “MovNat”, a synthesis of his long-term passion for real-world physical competency, his love of movement in nature, his extensive knowledge of Physical Education history, and his personal philosophy of life. He believes it is everyone’s universal and biological birthright to be strong, healthy, happy and free. He calls this state of being our “True Nature”.

Erwan was born on September 10th, 1971 in France. At home, the TV set had a black and white screen with no remote control and no video games, and personal computers and internet didn’t exist. Most leisure time was spent outdoors exploring the surrounding woods. He was not only free to go move outside as much as he wanted, he was actively encouraged to do so.

At a very young age, Erwan’s father would often take him outdoors to run, crawl, climb, and jump, helping him to push his physical and mental limits. That’s when his passion for movement in nature started. Until his teenage years, Erwan’s only physical education came from Judo and exploring the world around him.

At age 15, Erwan was introduced to karate. This quickly became a great passion which taught him the virtues of discipline, method, and commitment. He completed his course of study, successfully competed at the national level in France, and received his black belt at age 18, only to realize that this approach had inherent limits and did not fulfill his great thirst to explore his body and mind and to grow as a human being.

At age 19, while living in Paris, Erwan was introduced to a hard-core philosophy of natural physical and mental training and lifestyle called “Combat Vital”. For 7 years he trained in both natural and urban settings, day and night. He climbed bridges, balanced on heights, jumped from roof to roof, walked on all fours in the underground, swam in cold waters, and practiced breath training and fighting techniques.

At age 27, Erwan decided to follow his own path. This period primarily included sailing, Olympic weightlifting, rock climbing, long distance triathlon, trail running, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. While he understood the benefits of every field he explored, he also recognized the issues sport specialists have to confront. These experiences confirmed his intuition that a broader approach is more beneficial to everyday life and is both more enjoyable and healthier.

At age 33, he started researching the rich and fascinating history of physical education in Europe, unearthing photographic and newspaper archives and studying many old, dusty books extensively. As he discovered several forgotten training methods, such as Georges Hebert’s “Methode Naturelle”, he found many similarities between these approaches and his own. By understanding the historical circumstances that led the old physical education and fitness methods to decline and fail to reach modernity, Erwan realized that those ancient practices could be revived if the obsolete methodologies were updated and improved. From there, Erwan decided to once again fully dedicate his training and research to real-world movement skills and physical competency.

In 2008, while living, training, and instructing in Brazil, he worked on synthesizing his knowledge, experience, methods, and principles into the creation of an entirely new training and coaching system. He defined an overall approach based on evolutionarily natural tenets which better fit the concerns and expectations of people today. MovNat was born.

In April 2009, Erwan is featured in Men’s Health USA in an inspiring article about himself and MovNat written by New-York Time best-seller author Christopher McDougall. The journalist described his transformative first-hand training experience with Erwan in Brazil.

In January 2011, Outside magazine released another feature-length article about Erwan and MovNat. The magazine ranked “Paleo-fitness” #1 of their Top 10 Health and Fitness Trends of 2010, and MovNat as the leading force behind this movement.